Johnny & Jan Spencer's 2011 Alaskan Adventure

Welcome to our trip journal!We are planning to begin our Alaskan adventure on June 4, 2011, when we will leave NC and begin our trip across the US. We began planning this trip a few years ago. We wanted to be able to travel when and where we wanted, and on our own time. So, we are travelling on our own, just the two of us with our cairn terrier Nicky, 8. We are looking forward to meeting lots of people along the way. We hope to visit a different church every Sunday. Let us tell you a little about ourselves. Johnny, 64, was born and raised in a small town outside of Winston-Salem, NC. He went to work for RJ Reynolds in 1973 and retired in 2003. He and a partner currently own and operate a small family restaurant in his home town. Jan, 60, is a Navy brat who travelled around and graduated from school in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She eventually found her way to NC where she put down roots and raised 3 children. Both of us divorced our first spouses and in 1996, were introduced to each other by our children. We married in 1999 and have been happy ever since. Jan retired from local government in 2010 and we got serious about camping across the USA, Canada, and Alaska. We had begun camping several years ago and have a 34' Sunnybrook with 2 slide-outs. For this adventure however, we decided we needed something smaller. After searching for several months last year, we found a 1998 Lance Model 8000, 10'9" slide-in for our dually truck. We cleaned and polished it up and took it to the beach last summer to see if we could make it in a much smaller camper. It has everything we need and we had a good time camping in it. We also took it to Merlefest at the end of April 2011 to make sure everything was working well. We found a minor problem with the hot water heater and have ordered a part for it. We have begun packing and are looking forward to June 4. It is now May 21 so we are getting close. We hope the part comes in next week.